This invention relates generally to monitoring systems, and more particularly to methods and systems for monitoring and diagnosing machinery.
At least some known monitoring systems, monitor machine drivers, for example, motors and turbines, or machine driven components, such as, pumps, compressors, and fans. Other known monitoring systems monitor process parameters of a process, for example, piping systems. Such monitoring systems may operate independent of, or may be integrated through, a distributed control system (DCS). The DCS may permit a user to create various combinations of parameters to perform analysis functions. However, within known distributed control systems, such combinations and analysis functions are specific to the DCS platform they are executing on, and as such, are generally not usable to monitor a plurality of machines or on other DCS systems without significant editing of software code.
Currently, software rules used to direct receipt, analysis and output of parameters that are measured for monitoring machinery are custom coded for each system on which they are operating. To operate properly, the rules may need to be set up in a very specific manner. Accordingly, system setup may take an excessive amount of service time to set-up the rules. In addition, optimizing rules to obtain accurate results in diagnosing machine malfunctions may also be time consuming, as no mechanism may exist that enables rules from one system to be copied or moved to another system. For example, a complex set of rules that diagnose a set of malfunctions on a particular machine type may have to be created by hand within on each system in which it is used, which may be a complicated and costly process. In addition, no known methods are available to validate the rules in a testing environment prior to putting the rules into service. Also, the software rules capturing the machine troubleshooting, analysis, and diagnosis knowledge of application engineers in a robust list of instructions may be a marketable intellectual property for the application engineers and for their employer. However, only very basic security features may be incorporated to protect this intellectual property.